Arkansas Lakes Fishing Report

Lake - Bull Shoals 03/25/06:

Dam area to Lead Hill: The bite continues to be good on main lake points and steep banks with Lucky Craft pointers and Staysees. Flashier chromes and holographic colors like American shad or Nishiki have been producing on sunny days while chartreuse shad and pearl ayu are better on cloudy ones. Eakins’ jigs and Tubes are working as well on bluff ends and channel swing banks on the main lake and in the major creek arms PB&J / green pumpkin has been a hot combination. Some crankbait fish have been caught this past week toward the backs of major creeks and up around the bridge at Theodosia, windy, flat mixed rock banks have been the most productive.

Lead Hill to Power site: The crankbait bite seems to be better above Lead Hill with wiggle warts in brown craw, watermelon and natural green craw being the most productive colors. Parallel chunk rock and mixed rock points and channel swing banks in 6’ – 10’ of water. Most of the bites are coming as the bait runs into a piece of cover like a log or large rock, so try to hit as much cover as possible in your retrieve. On calmer days throw a Jewel 5/16 oz. spider jig and Chomper jig trailer combo to main lake and major creek arm channel swing banks and bluff ends.

Lake - Bull Shoals 03/27/06:

If you like winter type weather then you enjoyed this last week with the lows in the 20’s and the highs in the 30’s to low 40’s and cold rain. The rain was nice because it brought the lake level up but it was a disaster for the spring run as we lost 3 to 4 degrees in lake temperature. Main lake temperatures struggled to stay in the upper 40’s (49.6) and the mid-50’s that were in the back of the creeks are also gone as the winds blew out of the north for five days pushing the warm water out of the creeks.

We were able to find 50.4 degrees in the back of four creeks over the weekend. On the plus side the lake came up about almost a half a foot so we are now about 7 3/4 feet fellow normal pool. Now if we can get some April showers we can get back what we lost over the fall and winter.

Largemouth bass were more active on the main lake points than they were in the creeks this last week. Football jigs and Spider jigs were the key baits in the brown or PB & J colors. Most of the largemouth were schooled in 25 to 28 feet of water. As the lake warms back up this pattern will disappear and they will move into the creeks and pockets to stage up for spawn. There are some largemouth in the back of the northern creeks but their numbers are few and their size is 12 to 15”.

Smallmouth bass are holding on pea rock points at the entrance of the cuts, pockets and creeks throughout the lake. They are in transition to move to spawning grounds but without 55 to 57 degrees water temperature they won’t move. They also are holding in 24 to 28 feet of water and are feeding on shad and whatever crawdads they can find. Brown, watermelon and appleseed tubes, suspending rogues, Wiggle Warts and Spider jigs are all starting to product some nice smallies. We are still 4 to 5 degrees shy of the really good bite so you have to cover water and work to find the aggressive smallies.

Kentucky bass have broke away from the balls of shad and have moved into the pockets and creeks staging on banks that have ledges or large boulders. Their feeding pattern is still shad although they are cruising the banks looking for crawdads, which adds crankbaits to the key baits that will trigger spring time Kentuckys . Other baits that are working are Spider jigs, tubes and suspending rogues. Another place to look for the Kentuckys is with the White Bass, which they swim with during spawning season. Roadrunners and Lucky Craft Pointer 78’s will catch Kentuckys as well as White bass.

Walleye continue to elude us. They are hard to find and catch during the daylight hours because they are cruising but you can go out at night and catch a few off main lake points and secondary creek points on X-raps and suspending rogues. Soon the lake will be at the magic 52 degree mark and the walleye will start their move to spawning grounds, it is not too far away so get ready. Stock up on Shad Raps, Glass Shad, X-raps, Lucky Crafts and spinnerbaits. The shallow walleye bite is just around the corner.

Remember to keep only what you can eat and release the rest for another day. Rick Culver of Wilderness Trail does the research for this report and the writing of this report. For more information call Rick or Sue Culver at Wilderness Trail at 870-445-2703, e-mail us at wtrail@bullshoals.net or check out our web site at www.wildernesstrail.com

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